when the story unfolds it’s in the pages of a rustic novella.
boy and girl with a chance slight of the fingers, a graze,
and there begins the world’s oldest story.
the tale of the truest, purest thing (in theory)

here, we imagine the silk sway of a slip dress on the sand
and the tip of a hat—an exchange of 3 letters
painted with ink on wet canvas paper. this is the love of age,
one that never wears, immortalized in brushstrokes.

but like sand swells to the rhythm of the sea,
as does the soul: we believe that momentarily, love is infinite,
but it never quite is—instead we bear the tale
of the dryness of the drought. where the endless ocean recedes. 

but if it’s the beaches—the seagull’s chant, the easy breeze,
if it’s the ebb and flow of the tide that dictates one’s love;
the world feigns mindless piety in trade for easy narrative
but i know the truth the stories sow.

sing to the rhythm of the waves now, love.
if it’s the beaches that give you the nerve to bury me 
i’ll ride into the waves, arms outstretched—
summer love is the beauty of recollection encapsulated
              in the palms of two fools & the fading horizon.